Hello again
family! This week literally flew by! It feels like just a couple days
ago I was sitting here writing you all an email. I also cannot believe
it is November! Where the heck did October go?? I gotta admit, I am a
little happy time is flying, but at the same time so sad. I am not sure how I am going to survive this winter season. I am a little scared... it will be good though. Haha well I have a couple shout outs this week. First one goes to my nephew, Zander. My little guy will be 6 MONTHS OLD this upcoming Sunday.
Can you believe that?? He is the sweetest boy ever. The 3 months I got
to spend with him, getting to know him, were my favorite. Make sure you
all give him an extra squeeze from his favorite Auntie Gabby! My second
shout out goes to my best friend, my mom. Her birthday is on Saturday
and I just have to take a sec to tell you all how great she is. She
truly is one of the most amazing, selfless, caring, hilarious, tender,
awesome people I have met. We are like the same person so for many
years, we butted heads. Haha but in the last couple years,
our relationship has grown to something amazing. She truly is my biggest
supporter and my greatest example. I am thankful for her every day and
for the amazing mom that she is to me. So again, when you see her give
her an extra hug from her missionary. :) Also, I just have to share one
"fun" fact I learned this week. In Winterset (one of the
towns I serve in, which has a population of about 10,000 people), there
are 17 different churches here. Can you believe that?? So crazy.
Anyways, here is the weekly lowdown:
Monday:
Since it was the end of the month almost, we had TONS of miles leftover
on our car so we decided to go a little crazy this p-day. We drove into West Des
Moines and went to the mall. It was
soooo
great! It just felt like a day at the mall with one of my friends. Things did get a bit
crazy though cause Sister Barkers birthday was yesterday, so while we
were at the mall she decided to do something crazy. We were just joking
around and I said, "Hey. You should get
your ears pierced." (She has never had them pierced!) 10 minutes later,
her ears were pierced.
Haha being spontaneous
is pretty fun. :) So we spent the day there and then had dinner that
night at our Bishop's house with all the other missionaries. It was
pretty fun. We ended up just staying to whole night talking. We seem to do that
a lot... :)
Tuesday: Most of our day Tuesday was taken up by interviews with
President Jensen. He seriously is so great! We also got to do interviews
with Sister Jensen and she reminds me of my Nana so that is always fun.
:) After interviews, we came home to do our studies. Pretty low key day.
Wednesday:
Such a fun day! We had service today of course and we painted pumpkins
which was so fun! Me and Sister Barker decided we have to stop making
our crafts look so good cause the residents are getting mad when theirs
doesn't look like ours.
Haha We did some
walking for the rest of the day and had to head home early cause we were
grounded at 6. Here in Iowa, they have something called Beggars night.
It is where the kids go trick or treating on a night other than
Halloween so then on actual Halloween the adults can go out and
party. Classy right? ;) Anyways,
Wednesday
was beggars night so President Jensen grounded all the missionaries at 6
so that we wouldn't be tempted to trick or treat. It turned out great
though cause we ended up playing apples to apples with the Prices all
night. :)
Thursday:
HAPPY HALLOWEEN! I hope you all had a wonderful day. If you have cute
pics of your costumes, I would love to see em. Since today was
Thursday,
we had district meeting which is always great. Kind of weird though...
the Elders serving in our ward had ZERO miles left on their car for the
month so we had to give em a ride to the church.
Haha we were all kinda weirded out. Of course though, we just cranked
MoTab
and sang our little hearts out. :) Because it was Halloween, we also
had to be in by 6 tonight. We
watched "17 Miracles" with the Prices. If you haven't seen that movie,
seriously
watch it. So good! I feel so blessed too, that I
am serving my mission in the place where these pioneers traveled. I feel
almost spoiled actually. It is quite wonderful. Sister Price is awesome
too and made homemade frosted sugar cookies for us while we watched.
She is so great!
Friday:
Weekly planning. Woo. It is just crazy cause that takes up almost all
of our day! We did however get one lesson in with Deloris who is one of
our investigators. We had a member who was just baptized about 4 months
ago come with us and it was a total blessing cause they actually already
knew each other! Revelation is real people! The lesson went pretty
good. We committed her to come to Church and she said yes. Progress.
That night, we had dinner with the Elders at our ward mission leader,
Brother Jackson's house. We were able to talk to Brother
Jackson and just update him on who we are seeing which is always good
and then the Elders gave a sweet lesson. Great night!
Saturday: A day of blessings. We were really stuck on what to do
on Saturday cause we had no
appts.
and we didn't know where we wanted to go. Well, it all worked out of
course and Heavenly Father blessed us with amazing plans. We headed into
Van Meter first to see a potential we met a couple weeks ago. His name
is Steve and he is so awesome! So prepared! We got there though, and he
was home alone so we weren't able to teach him! So frustrating! Luckily
though, we made an
appt. for Tuesday and we are really excited! After that, we headed into
Winterset
to go to the library to print out some stuff. The weather has been great here, so we are trying
to do all our walking now before it gets super cold! So we went and saw
a less-active sister and had an amazing lesson with her. Then we walked over
to the other side of
Winterset to see some of our
investigators. It is nice cause 4 of our 7 all live in the same
neighborhood so it makes our life a little easier. We didn't have time
to teach them so we just said hi and reminded them all about church the
next day. When we came home, Sister Barker had gotten a bunch of packages for her birthday so we decided to open
them all. :) Sister Barker got a bunch of balloons in hers so we blew em
all up and played balloon soccer with Ash. It was great. :)
Sunday: Today was awesome, and tiring. It was Sister Barker's birthday today so we partied all
morning while we got ready for church. We were both so excited for
church cause testimony meeting in the Raccoon River ward is seriously
the best! So we walk in and sit down, and church starts. We look around
and not one of our investigators was there. We were so sad! Then,
all the sudden Deloris walks in!
We wanted to jump for
joy! We waved her over to us and she came and sat down and just looked
overwhelmed but so happy. We were so glad she made it in time for the
sacrament so that she could see that. Amazingly, she stayed all 3 hours!
It was wonderful! I never thought though how hard it would be to have
an investigator at church.
Haha you are constantly worried
about how they are taking it all in, making sure the ward is introducing
themselves, making sure they get where they need to be. It is
exhausting, but so worth it. :) After church, we came home and had a
birthday lunch with the Prices. They made Sister Barkers favorite...
fettuccine
alfredo. It was pretty dang good! Then of course, we played an intense game of
UNO. Man are the Prices competitive.
Haha I fit right in. We only did that for a little bit cause then we had to get back to work. We did our studies, then headed into
Winterset to see Deloris. We just talked through church with her and answered her questions and she committed to come again next week!
Wooo!
After we saw her, the Tunney family wanted us to come over for some
dessert. Brother Tunney is a chef so anything he makes is
glorious. We shared a lesson with them about the plan of salvation and then headed home.
Well family, that was my week! It was a really good one! I hope
that you all had a good week too. I just want to leave my testimony with
you before I end my letter.
